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Friday, 29 May 2015

Hello everyone and happy Friday! It being the last Friday of the month in a month that has 5 Fridays means the Design Team at A Vintage Journey share some Tim inspired tags, and here is mine.

I love creating tags, they are quick to do and have so many uses. This is an extra long one that uses a Prima Mixed Media tag as its base. I started by adding some texture paste through a stencil that I had created myself using one of Tim's new Mixed Media Thinlet dies.
I then created by background with the help of some Remnant Rubs, background stamps and Tissue Tape and added colour with Walnut Stain and Black Soot Distress inks.

My focal image (from a very old Tim Stamp set called Winged Things) was stamped in Black Versa Fine ink, and fussy cut. I then stamped her dress again with a Faber Castell Big Brush pen to add that reddish colour. I paper pieced that on and then added some further little details with pens, I also added the little heart just for fun. Once she was glued in place on the tag, I added shadows to make her pop a bit more.

The metal piece at the top started life as a bright silver filigree piece. I first added sand paste to it, then black Gesso and finally some Antiquing Cream to create some rusty effects. I then added a little Ideaology heart charm on top of that.

The sentiment is from the new larger size Ideaology word stickers

Well, that's it for now. Please do take the time to hop over to A Vintage Journey to see the other tags my team mates have created, - I promise you will not be disappointed, lots of inspiration in many different styles, yet all inspired by the amazing Mr Holtz.

Oh and don't forget, there's still about a week left to play along with our Spring Colours challenge too.

Thursday, 28 May 2015

Hi everyone and thanks so much for dropping in here today!
A few days ago I was lucky enough to have a crafty day with friends, and apart from great company, lovely food and some good old crafty chats we also started to make a little altered file folder booklet.

Our lovely friend Anne had brought along her Crazy Bird Tim Holtz stamp set, so I decided to have a play with that.....

Now to be honest, when I first saw this stamp set I thought "whaaaaat"? That is one of Tim's new sets??? Not me at all, no way will I ever get/use that one. But then of course everybody and their cousin is using it right now, (and in my book that is often a reason not to use something), but then hey, there they were, and why not just have some fun with them. And you know what, the more I used them, the more I fell in love.....

Anyway, here are some pics of what I made:

Here's a close up of the little guy on the front. I stamped all of my birds on a piece of specialty stamping card, (thanks Anne for letting me use that). The background was created with distress inks and stencils on each of the pages. I only managed to finish part of the front during the crafty session, all the rest I then finished at home, adding more stamps etc.

Here is the next double page. I fussy cut the birds, coloured them with Distress Markers and Inks and then because of course I could not fussycut the feet etc etc I just drew them with a black pen once the main parts of the bird had been adhered to the background.

Here are some more close ups, as you can see, each of the pages has a pocket that can be used to fit in journaling notes, tags or whatever.

I used Tim Holtz, Design by Ryn and Carabelle Studio stamps through out and added loads of rub ons too. Anne has given me Tim's new rub-on tool as a present. Again when I first saw that, I never thought it was worth while to purchase it, but now that I have one, all I can say is WOW, it works like a dream and it has actually become easy to add rub-ons even over an inked surface. So once again THANK YOU ANNE!!!

Here is the final page, all done in a similar way, just playing with stamps and stencils, my all time favourite way of creating.

Ok, so I have now well and truly fallen in love with the Crazy Birds and have a funny feeling they may well drop into my basket one day soon after all.....

I want to thank Annie for being our wonderful host and Rita and Anne for being such great company!! I'll leave you with a picture of us all:

Tuesday, 26 May 2015

Hi everyone, hope you are all doing well!
Don't know about you but this month seems to have flown by even faster than others... I suddenly realised I had not done my Tim Tag yet, - ouch, only a few days left, so here we go:

Such cool techniques, but of course like usual I did not have half of the stuff he used, so it was improvisation all along the way.

I did not have the Burlap Textured surfaces stuff, but I did find some burlap, only much lighter in colour. I glued it onto a # 8 tag with Ranger Matte Medium and when dry trimmed the edges.
I had a pale background in mind, so after my texture paste had dried I still added a thin layer of watered down gesso:

After that I encountered problem number one, - I had no good ephemera pieces left, but I did have some vellum ones. As I did not want a vellum effect, I chose a few, glued them onto white paper and when that had dried, cut them out. Voila, just about passable....

For the rest I pretty much followed Tim's technique, just substituting products.

Here you can see one of the ephemera pieces. I do not have the mini flower die yet, so that was not an option. I have various other ones I could have substituted, but in the end decided on just one burlap flower to match the background of this month's tag.

I chose this gorgeous lady from the photobooth images as I thought her lovely light coloured outfit would suit my paler background. I did some very light red photo tinting, but the effect has gone lost on the photo. I also decided to put my ribbon on the top and as you can see added a couple of little roses from my stash.

Now regulars may remember that I made a little pocket book in January to hold my tags, and every month I create a double page to go with the tag, so here is this month:

I used the Correspondence Paper stash for my backgrounds, white washed with watered down gesso.

Some stamping and stenciling was added. The word Fragile was cut from one of the papers.

On the other side I added another photobooth character. I'm sure this young man is dreaming of the beautiful lady on the tag.....

Monday, 25 May 2015

Hello everyone, so happy to have you drop in here today and welcome like always to you all!
I am showing a card I made as my second DT piece for Country View Challenges where the theme is "Something Scenic" this month.

I decided to dust off some of my Sheena Douglas stamps again and create another scene with the beautiful St Paul's stamp. This is actually a Christmas stamp set, but has many other uses besides.

I created a circular aperture mask and adhered it to my base card. I then stamped the main St Paul's image in Walnut Stain Distress Ink.

I masked the main image with masking fluid, punched a circular mask, put that in place over my masked St Paul's and then inked around it with Faded Jeans and Walnut Stain Distress Inks. When I was happy with the result I removed both the masking fluid and the moon mask and added a bit more colour with my inks and a blending tool. With the main circular aperture mask still in place I then stamped some little trees in the foreground, inking them up with a brown Big Brush pen.

I removed the main circular aperture mask, added a sentiment and because there seemed to be so much white space I then did some light stenciling still, using a Tim Holtz layering stencil and the same two colours of Distress inks.

After that I matted and layered my card and my simple scene was done.

Well, that's it from me for today but there are still some days left to join in our challenge. So if you have not done so yet, we all hope to see you there

Saturday, 23 May 2015

It's a magpie day over at the Countryview Challenge blog today. What is Magpie Day you may wonder???? Well it's simply a day where some of the design team show some extra projects for our monthly theme. This month our theme is Scenic, and so I created a card that depicts another little scene.

One of my all time favourite stampers is the hugely talented Paula Whittaker who blogs at Just for One Day. She creates the most amazing one layer cards and this one is very much inspired by her wonderful work. Thank you Paula for all your inspiration!!

My focal stamp is by Darkroom Door from the London 2 set. I cut out a circle with a Spellbinder die, stamped my stamp in black, created a circular little mask for the moon with the help of a punch, put it in place over the stamp and then created my background with the help of some Brusho and Distress Inks in Gathered Twigs and Broken China. I removed the mask, added a little more ink and then with a water brush took away some of the ink to create some rays of light,

I cut a 5.5 by 5.5" card blank, added some background stamping with various stamps and finally adhered my circle in place, just off center.

The final step was to add some Remnant Rubs and a sentiment from the new larger Tim Holtz word stickers and that was it.

Well, that's about as close to a one layer card that is clean and simple as I will ever get, but I had fun making it even though clearly I need a lot more practice.....

Thanks for dropping in and do take a look at what my teamies have created, and don't forget, you still have a week to join into our challenge!

Thursday, 14 May 2015

Hi everyone and thanks for dropping in.
It's been a bit quiet around here because I have been busy with other things besides crafting and blogging. And today all I have to share is a modest trio of cards....

Like many of us, my blogging life started as a card maker, and now it's actually not often that I make cards anymore, but I needed a few, so had a card making session playing with a Penny Black stamp. Each card is just a variation of the same theme, - size and layout as well as technique, - just using different colours.

The finished cards are 6 x 6", but I started with a 5 x 5" piece of card. I stamped the wonderful collage stamp in Black Archival, added some texture, coloured with Distress Inks and then added a few embellishments. This one uses Shaded Lilac, Evergreen Bow, Rusty Hinge and Vintage Photo.

This one started with Stormy Sky, then I added Faded Jeans and Frayed Burlap. The leaves were coloured with a mix of greens and the flowers were watered down Aged Mahogany and some Rusty Hinge. I then added some gold highlights with some watered down gold paint. The background stamp I used on each of the cards is by Andy Skinner and is my new favourite as it seems to work perfectly with so many of Tim Holtz's stencils.

This one finally uses Mustard Seed, Seedless Preserves and Dusty Concord. I also added a bit of Wild Honey to the center of the flowers.

Just playing with Distress Inks (and Markers) is one of my favourite things to do, it's so relaxing, just what I needed at the moment.

Well that's it, thanks for your visit, I hope to find some time for visiting some of you soon, and sorry that I have not been around much lately. Hope you all get some inky time

Friday, 8 May 2015

Two of my Blog friends, Ingrid Kristina and Pamellia have recently started new Mixed Media Challenge blogs, so I thought as I had some spare time, I would play in my journal and make something to add to their challenges. I'll provide links at the bottom of my post.

I decided to use my simplicity journal, a small leather bound journal with hand made paper pages.
As I totally forgot to take step by step photos, - here is a quick run down of how I did my pages:
1. Cover the pages with Tim Holtz Tissue Wrap.
2. Add texture using Wendy Vecchi clear texture paste through the Tim Holtz Flourish stencil.
3. Add a thin layer of watered down gesso
4. Add colour with the help of fluid acrylic paints (I used Dercoart Media Fluid Acrylics)
5. Deepen colours in places with Gelatos using a baby wipe
6. Add some Tim Holtz Remnant Rubs
7. Add some background stamping (I used a Andy Skinner stamp)
8. Stamp text on some book paper covered with clear gesso and distress the edges.
9. Stamp focal stamp (I used the Tim Holtz fairy from the Winged Things stamp set)
10. Distress the edges.
11. Add some small flower embellishments (I used the Sheena Douglas apple blossom die).
Below follow some details still:

Somehow using the texture past through the flourish stencil made the raised bits look like flower stems when I coloured them with my mix of paints and gelatos, it kind of worked perfectly for this page as it was meant to be a flower garden page.

This text came from the Tim Holtz Photo Studio stamp set. I stamped it in black archival on gessoed book paper and then distressed the edges.

I added some strips of tissue tape so the fairy had something to sit on.

The fairy herself was stamped on smooth paper in archival. I then stamped her again on book paper. I fussycut both and then paper pieced her wings. She was then covered with Glue 'N Seal and when that was dry coloured with Faber Castell Big Brush pens. Adding the Glue 'N Seal helps to blend the marker really easily and when they are dry they are totally permanent.
I added her to the page with matte medium and then added some shadows with my Big Brush pen again.

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Birthday Card

Just got a whole lot of new stamps from a brilliant place called the Stamp Smith. This is the image that I first saw on Docraft and really liked. I asked the friend who has used it in an ATC, where she got it. Well she borrowed it from a friend who got it from ebay as a one off. But.... it had a title. I googled the title, and hey presto found the site. They have great stamps and offer a really friendly fast service. I highly recommend them!

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